


it was a fever dream

by stover



Series: always haunted; sometimes scared [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe, Azalea Town, Detective Keith (Voltron), Detective Lance (Voltron), Gen, Hallucinations, Hiwada Town, Investigations, Jouto-chihou | Johto, Pokemon AU, haunted forests, platonic klance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-07
Updated: 2019-04-11
Packaged: 2020-01-06 01:43:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,368
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18378368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stover/pseuds/stover
Summary: Reports of mysterious activity in Ilex Forest prompt the International Police to send two of their agents - Keith and Lance - to Azalea Town. There, they fight a ghost fire that’s been raging for three years - the same time when Keith was still just a nobody running wild in search of his parents.





	1. will-o-wisp

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2018-2019 [VLD Primary Big Bang](http://voltronbigbang.tumblr.com). Thanks to [@shadow-wyvern-art](http://shadow-wyvern-art.tumblr.com) [for their exquisite piece!](http://shadow-wyvern-art.tumblr.com/post/184031732683/my-picture-for-great-fic-it-was-a-fever-dream-by)

“You’ve seen the Ruins of Alph before, right?”

On the bed in one of Azalea Town’s few inns, Keith flipped through papers in a manila folder. Multi-tasking wasn’t exactly his strong point, but he’s read through these papers hundreds of times before, and working with Lance made you pick up a few skills along the way. “Yeah.”

“You ever get to see one of those glyph things?”

“Nope.”

“Really? And here I thought you’ve seen everything.”

“Nah.”

“You ever think, like. . . . Like, since nobody’s seen them, really—You ever think they’re not real? Like, the Unown are like Pokemon versions of UFOs?”

Keith paused for a moment, staring at a photograph amongst the papers. It was a shot of a dense forest in the dead of night. A waning moon hid behind the foliage. Stars spilled across the inky sky. Inspected carefully, the sharp tail of a Weedle could be seen sticking out of a bush by the left corner.  And right above that was the shadowed blur of what seemed to be. . . . Something. A child. A monster. A cause for alarm.

Or a smudge on the camera lens.

A hand suddenly appeared in his face, waving frantically.

“Helloooo? Earth to Keith?”

Keith blinked and looked up. “Sorry. I was looking at—”

“Blah, blah, case files; blah, blah, important mission stuff; blah, blah, blah. I know, you’ve been looking at those weird-ass pictures the whole time we were on the train.” Lance snatched the file from his hands and tossed them onto the bed. “C’mon, let’s go check out the town. We’ll do all your favorite shit, ask questions, snoop on weirdos—you know, Scope Lens this place, inside and out.” His partner puncuated the statement with a click of his tongue and a cheesy gesture of double finger guns.

“Hold on,” Keith said, reaching back for the folder. He flipped it open right on the bed, ignoring his partner’s exaggerated groan and the flopping form sinking face-first into the blankets at the foot of the bed. Keith found the photograph he’d been inspecting and held it for his partner to see. “Here, take a look at this.”

His partner made another groaning sound, this time sounding like a beached Wailord. But Lance turned anyway, sending Keith a narrow-eyed look of displeasure before settling his sour gaze on the photograph in question.

Slowly, the furrows in Lance’s brow smoothed out. Something in his eyes sparked them wide. And then, he sat up, plucked the picture right out of Keith’s hands, and flung it to the floor with a choked scream.

Keith grinned wickedly as Lance shouted, _“Ghost boy!”_ and clambered entirely onto the bed. The barrage of pillows was expected, and Keith couldn’t keep the cackling laughter from spilling out of him, even when Lance wrestled him into false submission and sat on his back on the bed.

Soon, loose feathers drifted everywhere, and the blankets roped around their limbs in lazy tangles. Keith managed to stretch a lazy arm out to fish the photo of the ghost boy off the floor. Beside him, propped up by pillows, Lance studied the paperwork in the files for the first time, reading and re-reading every note and scrap of text related to the Azalea Owl case. Keith looked at the photograph he’d terrified Lance with. The blurr of movement caught in the photo appeared stark white against the dark woods.

“Have you ever seen a ghost before?”

His partner asked casually, sounding less casual and more like he was breaching a topic he didn’t really want to talk about but felt that he had to. Lance was strange, in that way. He wasn’t afraid of sharing openly, and honestly. It was the kindness in his heart that made him like that, Keith thought. And, perhaps, it’s the kindness in his own heart that always made Keith listen in turn.

Keith touched his thumb to the white blurr. It fit perfectly. “Like, Ghost Pokemon?”

“Nah, man, like. . . . The ‘real deal’ kind.”

Keith shook his head.

“So, you don’t believe in ghosts?”

Keith thought about it. He never saw a ghost before, but he’s not one to knock off any of the ‘maybe’s of the world. He’d seen enough to know that most of the impossible isn’t all that impossible—especially with the kind of legendaries and sleeping titans still inhabiting the world. “I don’t know,” he decided to say. He turned to his partner. “Why, do you?”

Lance frowned, an uneasiness flickering in his eyes as he glaced briefly away. “I don’t know, I guess? Something I saw when I was a kid, or whatever. I was in Lilycove, so maybe it was one of the asshats floatin’ around there just messing with me, but—” Lance clenched his jaw. “I was in the department store and I thought I saw someone. They told me they were lost, so my stupid ass thought it was a great idea to go and help. But then _I_ got lost, and—like, all of a sudden I was the only person on the floor with the vending machines and there were, like, no stairs. And the—the ghost, or whatever, they just stood there, staring at me, and I think they were laughing. And I freaked out, dude. I freaked out and passed the fuck out. I was nine, maybe ten?” Lance shook his head. “Whatever, I was a kid. I woke up in the hospital and my mom was crying and everything. Apparently I fainted from heat stroke. I kept telling the nurses what I saw but they were just like, ‘oh, sweetie, don’t be afraid, you were just having a nightmare.’ Man, I felt like I was crazy. Can you imagine that? Nine years old, and feeling like you’re crazy?”

Keith didn’t say anything. He knew he didn’t have to.

Lance sank heavily into the pillows, staring straight ahead at the ceiling. “So, yeah. Too long, didn’t read version—I believe in ghosts. The End. Finito. Thanks for coming to my PokèTalk, watch your step as you exit the auditorium.”

Keith placed the photograph face-down on the blankets. Then he curled an arm behind his head and joined his partner in staring at the ceiling. He thought about his next words carefully before he spoke next. “While I was in Alola, I saw a giant white lion flying into the sun.”

Much like him, his partner didn’t say anything.

Then, Lance guffawed.

“Wait, what? Is that for real?”

Keith scowled and turned away. “I don’t know.”

At that, Lance laughed harder.

“Whatever,” he groused, sitting up. “I’m leaving. We’ve got work to do.”

But he couldn’t leave, because Lance’s hand was squeezing his tight, and suddenly Lance has got him wrapped up with his arms. Part of the blanket, still warm from their body heat, got trapped between them, a thin layer that feels vaguely like the walls they’ve still got up around themselves for one reason or the other.

“Sorry,” His partner blurted, amusement still hanging onto his tone, “I’m not laughing at you, I’m just—” Keith felt his partner’s arms slacken, slithering away as if they weren’t meant to be there. Then he felt Lance rest his chin on his shoulder, head leaning in the crook of his neck. “I get it. What you and I saw, it’s crazy, you know?”

Keith felt his breathing even out, not even aware that it had changed at all. His lungs felt lax and heavy as he breathed out, and light and full when he breathed in. And as he sat there, with his partner pressed against him, and listened to him contemplating aloud, he, too wondered.

What do you do when you’re the only one who’s seen something, who believes in something? What do you call that? Is it a mystery? Or hysteria?

“A little bit of both, probably.”

Keith sighed. He hadn’t meant to think out loud.

Behind him, his partner shifted, leaving him and moving elsewhere on the bed. When he turned, Lance had come back, holding the photograph of the white blur in his hand.

“Sorta like this case, I guess,” said his partner.

They stared at the photograph for a while, in quiet, meditative silence. Then, without a word, Keith got up to sweep up the stray feathers from the floor while his partner straightened out the sheets. The photograph is tucked into the case file, in its proper place, and the manila file itself is placed in Keith’s bag as they both file out and head for town.

The room grows cold and dark in their absence.

 

* * *

 

Ilex Forest is nothing at all like he remembered. Somehow, the expansive sea of trees he had to walk through felt smaller, and very different. Thin branches, stripped bare from the cold, opened the forest up to the light from the stars above. Wide, foot-worn paths wormed through the underbrush, glowing with luminous insects feeding off parcels of sweet honey that visiting trainers had slathered on trees.

None of this was here the last time Keith had been here. Then again, that had been a few years ago. The forest of then was darker, filled more with swarming, angry insects than the lax, solitary ones roaming about now. And there were certainly no marked paths or friendly lights to guide the way. Instead, to travel safely, a guide was needed: a Hoothoot of your own, or the paid service of a young woodcutter from Azalea.

Now, however, it seemed that people came and went as they pleased, tracking their meandering strolls with marks on trees, or even shaping new trails by trodding through lush overgrowth.

Whether by force or by nature, the haunting stillness of Ilex Forest was now gone. In its place was the pleasant thrumming of insects and the quiet sounds of the forest itself.

. . . . And incessant chatter.

“—So I found out that when I hop on my left leg, I can go faster than when I hop on my right leg, even if I use my right hand to write and throw and catch, and everything. Gramma says it’s because I was born left-handed, so I’m supposed to be a leftie but got turned into a righty cause everyone knows being a leftie means demons are gonna make you do bad things. So Momma taught me how to be a righty instead. I bet that’s why Maki’s so mean all the time, because nobody ever taught him how to use his right hand. And now he’s stuck being a leftie and hanging around with demons.”

“Sure,” said Keith, who wasn’t exactly listening to the young boy right now. That was more up his partner’s alley.

“Wow,” Lance said emphatically. “This Maki kid sure doesn’t sound all that nice. What else can ya tell me about him?”

“Well, there’s this one time when. . . .”

Keith sighed. This was gonna be yet another long week.

They were already two weeks into a small case thrown at them by the higher-ups at Inter-Pol, the international law-enforcement agency combatting criminal activity across all regions. As someone who’s spent his entire life poking through ruins, Keith’s no stranger to dealing with criminal syndicates. So being told to go to some hick town and find out why a couple of Hoothoot were going missing instead of being on the team to investigate why the entire Ruins of Alph sank into nowheresville really made him feel some type of way. Especially since it was migration season.

Hoothoots were birds. Birds migrated. Case closed.

Except — and this, Keith was admitting to rather begrudgingly — there was something odd about the whole “missing Hoothoot” situation. Nobody in Azalea town had called for an investigation. The only reports of the missing birds came from the gatekeeper stationed at route 34.

Stranger, still, was how Azalea didn’t seem to notice how a Pokemon analogous to the forest growing at their borders were rapidly dwindling in numbers. Instead, the entire town was obsessed with some upcoming lantern festival that had started about three years ago, when Suicune allegedly stopped a forest fire from spreading into town. According to the townspeople and the many memorial placards, the event was commemorated each year by setting paper lanterns afloat in Ilex’s Psyduck Pond as a way to remember the lives of the Pokemon and people lost in the fire.

Keith thought it was a touching event, but two hours of being in Azalea had left him with no “Hoothoots” left to give. Anyone he’d spoken to just ended up telling him about The Great Blaze. By the end of the first day, Keith was about ready to get the hell on out of Johto. Azalea, he thought, was a waste of time. This damn case, he also thought, was a crock load of shit, because one witness reporting weird happenings didn’t make a case—it just made a nutcase.

His partner disagreed.

“There’s a story here,” he’d simply said, stroking his smooth chin. “And the key to a good story is a good character.”

“Lance, this is real life.”

“Yeah, but it’s the same, kinda.”

“Whatever you say.”

“Man, just trust me on this, okay?”

While trust didn’t come naturally to Keith, six months with Lance was more than enough for him to start putting his trust in whatever his partner was cooking up.

Mostly because his partner did whatever he damn well pleased.

While Keith was out following protocol by questioning townspeople and the local police, Lance had been playing around with little kids and dropping by their schools to talk about the importance of kindness, love and—ironically—responsibility. By the end of the week, Keith had memorized the story of The Great Blaze by heart while Lance knew all the town’s kids by name. He also had five hand-made paper lanterns for the upcoming festival—just in case.

For how different the two of them were in their methods, there were moments where their work crossed. The young, chatty boy currently guiding them through the forest was one such moment.

Yuuki was the youngest son of the town’s woodcutter, Hiroki. The woodcutter was a large man with great shoulders and a stern face, who had also served as a guide for trainers as a young boy. And his father, Shiki, who now rarely got up if not for a game of hanafuda, had been a spry young lad in his youth, who had also served as a guide for trainers well into his adulthood; and such was the case for his father, and so on and so forth.

Yuuki, who now had to help his father twice every day after his twin brother had been lost in the fire, was one of the only people in town who had had anything to say about the declining Hoothoot population. According to Yuuki, the Hoothoot most likely “got mad” that they couldn’t make lanterns of their own, on account of how their giant clawed feet tended to rip the paper lanterns each year whenever they tried to pick them up to admire them, and thus “ran away” to find a new home.

Lance tagged the story as “useful information,” as possible evidence that something “weird” was taking place. Keith, on the other hand, saw it as evidence of adaptive migration in response to interference with an invasive species; ergo, another case of humans unintentionally pushing Pokemon out of their natural habitats.

Regardless of what they both thought was actually happening, one fact remained incontestable: this village really loved their paper lantern festival. It was all Keith had ever heard anyone talk about since they’d arrived four days ago. Paper lanterns were all the rage right now, because the seventh day of the seventh month of the year was the day of the festival. Even the kids were talking about it. Children at the school stopped everything they were doing to help children instead make paper lanterns from scratch.

Keith thought everyone was crazy. Lance thought everyone was just taking the time to be one big happy family. Yuuki agreed with Lance—except when it came to one kid.

“I mean, he _said_ it wasn’t a big deal, so I used some of his paint. But then he got upset, and then he yelled at me, and took my lantern, and he stomped on it!”

“That sucks,” Keith said supportively while Lance gave him a sympathetic pat.

Yuuki crossed his arms tightly and scrunched up his whole face. “I _hate_ him. He’s always doing stuff like that.”

Keith caught Lance frowning intently. He wondered if the story struck a personal chord with his partner.

“Maybe,” Lance began with furrowed brows, “he doesn’t know how to express himself. Like, maybe talking about his feelings makes him uncomfortable. Maybe he _thought_ it would be okay if someone used his stuff, but then when he saw you and felt that you were using too much or something, he didn’t know how to tell you why or how it bothered him.”

Yuuki’s face scrunched up even more. “So now it’s all _my_ fault? Yeah, right. How’s it any of my fault? I _asked_ him if I could use his paint, he said _yes,_ so I _used_ it. And besides, I wasn’t even using all that much, I just needed one color. I wanted to make a red lantern so I could make red light. Then I can see all the ghosts in the forest.”

“Ghosts?” Lance was frowning again. “Uh, I thought Ilex Forest was just full of. . . . Forest-y types. Like, grass types. And bug types, I guess.”

“But if it’s dark, then there’s always ghost pokemon!”

Lance made a nervous laugh. “Really? I didn’t know that’s how it went.” Suddenly, Lance turned to Keith with a thoughtful look. “Detective Kogane,” Lance spoke in a deep voice, “what is your expert opinion on this theory?”

For the sake of the mission, Keith feigned indifference. “I don’t care.” Saying it was a lot harder than he thought. He hadn’t thought of the presence of ghost pokemon before. It could potentially explain the disappearance of an entire species of pokemon from a particular area. Sort of.

“Booo.”Lance jerked his thumb down. “You’re no fun. And _so_ not as cool as you think. You’re— You’re, like, the _opposite_ of cool. You’re— You’re _un_ cool, and un _fun.”_

Keith swallowed the comeback right at his tongue when he felt Yuuki tug on his sleeve.

“It’s okay, Mr. Keith,” said the boy, smiling shyly up at him, _“I_ still think you’re cool. Really, _really_ cool.”

“Thanks,” said Keith, giving Yuuki an fond pat on the head.

“And! You’re super strong, too!” Yuuki declared. As if to prove it, he reached up and patted Keith’s thick bicep. “I bet you could be a fighting type if you want. Then you could do cool stuff, like. . . . a Mach Punch!” Yuuki made a show of strength by punching the air in front of him like a Hitmonchan warming up before a battle.

Suddenly, in front of the young woodcutter’s fist, a blue flame flickered into being.

Keith stared at the tiny blue flame as Yuuki’s jaw dropped open.

Quickly, Yuuki brought his hands to his face. “I have powers,” he gasped. He reached for the flame. “Maybe I can control it if I—”

“Whoa!” Lance grabbed Yuuki by the shoulder. “Don’t mess around with that, that’s a will-o-wisp! A cursed flame. If you’re not careful, you’ll end up with a mean burn. Or a curse. Or _both.”_

Yuuki’s whole face turned as white as a sheet.

Keith rolled his eyes. “Don’t listen to him, he’s full of s— . . . . stories. Full of stories.” Keith passed his hand a few times through the flame. “See? Nothing.”

“What are you doing?” Lance hissed, yanking him back. “You don’t _touch_ those! What part of ‘cursed flame’ do you not understand?”

“Gaaaah! Mr. Lance!” Yuuki shouted. “If _he’s_ cursed, then you’re cursed too because you touched him!”

Lance looked slowly from Keith to his hand on Keith’s shoulder. Lance’s hand fell off his shoulder faster than Coran could finish a limerick. “Oh my god,” he whispered. “You’re right. I — I’m. . . .” Lance shoved Keith away from him with a shout. “You _cursed_ me!”

Keith made to shove him back. But Lance was too quick. Lance slipped away from his touch and glared as if he came with Intimidate.

“Nope, nuh-uh. Keep your hands to yourself, man. I’m blocking you I-R-L, bro. No touching.”

“Are you for real? There’s no such thing as—”

“Look!” Yuuki shouted, pointing somewhere behind them, “There’s more!”

A second flame flickered into view.

“Ohhhh, no,” said Lance, clutching himself in a tight embrace, “I knew I shouldn’t have come here. I should’ve listened to those kids. Yuuki, man, you were right, this place’s got _ghosts._ We should’ve waited until after the festival.” Lance turned to Keith. “I say we head back to town and come back after the festival.”

“Come back after the festival,” Keith repeated incredulously. “What difference would that even make?”

 _“We,”_ Lance enunciated with an intentful look, “should come back _after_ the festival.” Lance looked pointedly at Yuuki, and then back at Keith again.

For the first time since they entered the forest, Keith actually took note of the boy. Yuuki wasn’t the chattiest person he’d ever met, but he certainly wasn’t the type to stay quiet. And though he’d always been sticking close by, Yuuki was practically glued to Lance now, his small hands clutching frightfully to Lance’s.

“Ah,” said Keith. He forgot that kids were generally _not_ inclined to power on in the face of danger. His own upbringing had been, admittedly, a complete anomaly. While Keith grew up being an unlucky kid dumped into one unfortunate event right after another, Yuuki was different. Yuuki had a childhood. _Has_ a childhood. “Alright,” Keith agreed. “Let’s go back.”

Just then, another blue flame appeared right in front of him. Yuuki’s startled scream told him that a lot more than just one had appeared. A quick glance proved him correct.

A ring of will-o-wisps danced around them in a mysterious wind, chittering voices echoing into their ears. The glow of the embers made the forest melt away into a thick fog of darkness. An icy wind ghosted over their heads.

“Good job, Keith,” Lance deadpanned, “You just _had_ to touch the flame.”

“I didn’t know _this_ was gonna happen!”

“I told you not to touch it! How many times did I say it? _Two_ _times._ That’s one time too many! Man, and you tell me I don’t use my head enough. And the one time _you_ mess up, you wanna get mad at _me?_ Boy, if I were you, I—” Lance stopped suddenly, crossing his arms tight across his chest like he was giving himself an angry hug. “You know what? It’s fine. We’re fine, just— You got us into this, so you’re getting us out.”

_**(art by[shadow-wyvern-art](http://shadow-wyvern-art.tumblr.com/))** _

His partner’s rant and snappy demand pissed him off. Lance was acting like he never mixed trouble with work a day in his life. Keith was just about ready to tell his partner to go fuck off into the woods when a soft whimper echoed in the air.

That was definitely not Lance.

Keith looked down.

Yuuki’s eyes were screwed shut, and he trembled as he clung to Lance’s shirt. He looked scared.

Did he look like that when he was a kid? Scared shitless and hiding behind the closest person around? Was that what he looked like? What does he look like now, staring at some kid scared out of their mind while arguing with his partner? What would he feel if the only two people who were supposed to be adults were arguing, scared in their own right? What would he want them to do? What did he want him to do?

While Keith stared numbly at the boy, Lance bent down and wrapped the child in his arms. “Don’t worry,” he heard his partner murmur softly, rubbing the kid’s back, “We’ll get you out of here.”

This is the reason why Keith could put his trust in his partner. Lance knew how to do things he couldn’t, and he did it all for its own sake--no matter what, if anything at all, he had to give up.

They’d worked together long enough for Keith to know how superstitious Lance was. Normally, something like this would throw his partner into a full-blown tizzy. But right now, there was none of that, because there was somebody in need.

Whiny and unpredictable as he may be, Lance was far from incompetent. Keith knew that his partner already had a handful of ways to get out of his mess, whatever this was.

Keith turned his gaze back on the dancing flames. They flickered like fireflies, feigning delicate innocence.

Lance’s voice cut through the trance. “You’ve seen these things once before, right? What do you know about them?”

“Oh. Uh. . . .” Keith thought back to the trail of will-o-wisps he’d seen once when he was eight, and how they’d led him up the floors of the Brass Tower. He thought about the ancient flute he’d found, and then to the rippling dimensional gateway, and the sharp, black claws reaching for—

Telling the truth, Keith realized, definitely wasn’t going to help.

“They usually just trail a path or go away if you ignore it long enough,” he said, pulling some generic crap out of his ass. He quickly followed that up with a disclaimer. “I mean, from what _I’ve_ seen, I guess. But this is, uh. . . . Well, I’ve never seen this sort of thing before.”

Suddenly, the flames stopped dancing. The whispering voices hushed to ghostly murmurs before disappearing altogether. And then, just like that, they disappeared one by one, all except for one.

“Damn,” Lance’s voice wavered slightly, “that’s freaky.”

Keith reached out to give Lance’s shoulder a reassuring squeeze. Lance jumped, startled, which made Yuuki yelp in shock and cling now to Keith.

“Dude!” Lance hissed, “I’m pissing already, don’t freak me out even more! Now’s not the time for pranks!”

“I wasn’t—!” Keith grit his teeth and retracted his hand. “Never mind.”

Slowly, a second flame appeared. It lit up a few feet away from the one right in front of them, leaning to their right. And then a third one appeared after that, and then a fourth, and then a fifth. It was a path.

“Okay,” said Lance, “Now we know which path leads to death.”

Keith elbowed Lance sharply in the ribs. He eyed Yuuki, who’d buried his face in Keith’s shirt and was shaking.

Lance put on a strained look. “To death. . . . _ly_ amounts of fun! Hahaha, that’s a path to so much fun! Haha, ha. . . . ha.”

“I don’t care!” Yuuki shouted, “I don’t wanna go there! I wanna go home!”

“Okay, okay, calm down,” said Keith, more worried now about how to take care of a kid than getting out of here. As Lance murmured promises of safety to Yuuki, Keith started toward the trail on their left. “We’re leaving this way, okay? We’ll be just fine—”

The flames returned in a ring of fire, encircling around them as angry voices buzzed and hissed and snarled.

“We’re trapped!” Yuuki cried. “What’re we gonna do?”

The fear in Yuuki’s voice hit close to home. As a child, there was nobody he could’ve turned to when things went to shit. Yuuki was much older than he’d been when his life started to take a nosedive, but that didn’t mean he was any less scared. Whatever this was—ghost, fire, or dark—he wasn’t about to let it hurt a little kid.

Keith unclipped the Great Ball from his belt. “Lance.”

“Way ahead of you,” Lance grinned, “Time to play, baby girl! Odor sleuth!”

From a blinding red light came a sleek and furry creature, sandy beige all over with dark brown markings on its face and down its back. With a growl, it leaped forward into the dirt and ran left to disappear into the underbrush.

Keith aimed his Great Ball where Lance’s Linoone had gone. “Take her lead, Talonflame!” In a burst of light, a falcon-like creature with brilliant plumage shot out like a bullet. It gave a trilling cry before cutting up into the sky and speeding fast over the trees.

“Whoa! What’re those?” Yuuki’s eyes were wide with awe; gone was the fear from before.

“Beautiful, right? My girl’s Hoenn-born and Hoenn-raised, and a certified, pedigree Linoone with perfect IVs,” Lance boasted. Then, he jerked a thumb back at Keith. “And this guy’s idiot bird was found flailing inside a cave deep in the island boonies.”

“Focus,” Keith hissed. “Here they come!”

A rushing gale whipped through the trees, sending a tornado of ripped leaves and broken branches their way. Keith ducked under a frightful collection of forest debris; Lance tucked Yuuki into him and lunged left, narrowly avoiding a thick branch half his size as it splintered to the ground close to where they were.

“They’re here!”

Two ghouls tumbled out into the trail, each shrouded in poison gas. Moaning, they twirled and twisted in the air, seemingly in distress. Upon spotting them, they froze and turned dead silent.

Yuuki gasped. “Gastly!”

Lance was not impressed. “Wow, really? All we get are a couple of gasheads? So much for playing hero around here. I bet they don’t even know Night Shade.”

The ghouls looked at one another, and then back to them, their eyes glowing an eerie yellow. Then, slowly, they disappeared into the night in a chorus of cackles.

“Whoa,” said Lance, cackling right along as Keith shook leaves and twigs out of his hair, “Now _that’s_ some freaky shi— iz. _Shiz._ Yeah, that’s what I meant to say.” Lance turned to squeeze Yuuki’s shoulder and brush leaves and dirt off the kid’s coat and face. “You okay? No scratches, no cuts. . . . You good?”

Yuuki, eyes wide and still glued to the splintered log twice his size, just gave a faint, _“uh-huh”_ in reply.

Lance gave the young nine-year-old a soft look. “You were really brave,” he said, and squeezed his shoulder again. “I don’t think I could’ve kept my cool if I were you. I probably would’ve wet my pants twice already, haha.”

Yuuki gave a watery laugh. “Really?”

Lance smiled. “Really.”

Hoping to lighten the mood, Keith came over to ruffle Yuuki’s hair and quipped, “He still does.” Keith winked at the giggling boy and walked away before Lance could throw a clump of dirt his way. With Keith out of reach, Lance only protested vehemently.

“I do _not!_ Oh my god, don’t listen to him Yuuki, he’s an ass— Uhhhhh, an ass- _spiring,_ grade-A jerk.”

“Nice save,” Keith wanted to say, but a wriggling overgrown rodent with white fur flung right onto his shoulders to hiss and snap its teeth at him. Keith shoved the creature off and spat out the fine hairs that got into his mouth. “Ugh, Lance! Keep that thing on a leash!”

Lance gasped comically. “A leash? On my Lily?? How dare you.” Lance spread his arms out. “Come here, Lily! Come to daddy!”

Keith couldn’t roll his eyes far back enough for him to adequately express how he felt at having to witness his partner baby-talking his giant rat of a Pokemon. It did save them, though, and it was a sneaky little thing. Regardless of how he personally felt, Linoone was a well-raised partner, and Keith always gave credit where credit was due.

 _“There’s_ my cute baby,” Lance crooned as Linoone leaped into his arms, “My perfect little Lily,” Lance went on as Linoone shoved itself between Yuuki and Lance, bumping its nose and pawing all over its trainer in concern, “Such a good girl, _yes_ she is. You scared them off, didn’t you? _Yes,_ you did.”

As Linoone fussed over the safety of its trainer, Talonflame soared the skies a few feet away. It wasn’t coming down to land, but that could just be because of how dark it was in the forest.

Lance snickered. “Looks like your bird’s lost.”

Keith ignored his partner and squinted into the distance. Talonflame was soaring in circles, eyes trained steadily on something below. It gave a sharp cry and didn’t let up. Something was there, it was saying, and it wanted Keith to come see it. But what?

Quickly, Keith surveyed their surroundings. The only way to reach his Talonflame was, unsurprisingly, the trail to their left—the very trail that’d made the flickering flames appear each time they’d made an attempt to head that way. He might not be a superstitious person, but he definitely knew when weird was going on.

Keith turned to Lance. “Take Yuuki back to town. I need to see what Talonflame found.”

Lance looked like he wanted to protest, but then his face turned a ghostly white. “W-Wait, Keith—!”

Keith didn’t hear the rest of what Lance had to say. Not only because he’d turned on his heel to charge down the will-o-wisp path, but also because, in doing so, he ran right into a thick cloud of poison gas from a giant ghoul that had re-appeared right at that moment.

He blacked out.


	2. night shade

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> No wonder Keith had the emotional intelligence of a mop; Johto was cracked. And speaking of cracked. . . . He sure hoped Keith’s head wasn’t cracked.
> 
> From the fall, not the— He wasn’t saying Keith was. . . .
> 
> You got what he meant, lay off. It’s been a long day.

They say that white noise helped you sleep at night, so Lance — being the kind, loving, and responsible partner that he was — took the extra step in making sure Keith would be resting well by letting his Holo-Caster fizzle some static. The guy deserved it! He was the best partner in the world; they were a great team and nobody could stop them from kicking ass and getting shit done together.

Except maybe the fact that Keith was unconscious, probably had a concussion,  _ and _ was probably also poisoned. 

Oh, and also because they were currently in hick-city central. Lance wasn’t against any “going back to nature” movements or anything, but right now he was because Ilex Forest had NO SIGNAL whatsoever for him to contact HQ about their slow and inevitable death.

Still, he refused to give up. Lance didn’t get a job at Inter-Pol by giving up. Hell to the fucking no. He never gave up. He was persistent. 

And annoying. 

But mostly persistent. And also responsible.

“Stupid watch,” Lance grit through clenched teeth, hitting the top of the screen with his fist. He’d seen Shiro do this a few times back when Lance was still in training, and it’d always worked for him. Maybe he just wasn’t hitting it right. Ooor, maybe he was weak. Maybe both. Smiles all around for that last one. Whoop-dee-doo.

“Is it broken?”

Yuuki’s tiny voice snapped him back to reality. Lance forced a well-practiced laugh. “Ah, not quite. It’s just… There’s no signal here.”

“Oh,” said Yuuki. “Well, yeah. Our signal tower got damaged in the fire.”

“I see,” Lance said, because gee, Azalea Town really got no love at all. First some deviant criminal gang comes to steal all their Slowpoke to cut off their tails and try to sell them as a snack, and then an unsolved case of arson nearly burns them all to the ground. Where the hell was the police in all this? What about the League? Also, Goldenrod was just around the corner; somebody should’ve been able to intervene before things got out of hand. What, did everyone think this place fixed itself with magic? Or did folks out here not care what the next town or city over was dealing with? 

No wonder Keith had the emotional intelligence of a mop; Johto was cracked. And speaking of cracked. . . . He sure hoped Keith’s head wasn’t cracked.

From the fall, not the— He wasn’t saying Keith was. . . .

You got what he meant, lay off. It’s been a long day.

Don’t tell Keith about this when he woke up. 

_ If _ he woke up. 

. . . .

C’mon, Keith, wake up. . . .

Of all the ways his partner could’ve gone down on a mission, running headfirst into a Gastly was definitely not one of those things anybody would’ve thought of. And while Lance was definitely gonna rip into him about that later on, his first priority was to make sure there was still a Keith around to make that happen.

He’s heard of people being phased by ghost types before. The route to Lilycove back in Hoenn always had signs about what to do. They encouraged trainers to keep one party member with a dark typing, or at least one with a dark-type move, like Bite or Thief. There were also monthly trainings in Rustboro or Lilycove on prevention techniques against phasing; those never really worked, but they were a great way to make sales on gimmicky items trainers normally didn’t buy in bulk, like Cleanse Tags, Poke-Dolls, and Smokeballs. Always, though, no matter how great prevention training was or how widespread awareness was, there were always a few unlucky folk who got phased. 

All the info on what happened to somebody after a phasing was the same: you passed out, plain and simple. Some folks who didn’t pass out right away got chills or nausea, while others were struck with a bad case of Night Shade syndrome — anxiety, paranoia, and even depression. But it was all temporary. Symptoms passed after a few days, unless it had triggered latent, pre-existing conditions, and folks who passed out woke up in a day or two, either with a bad headache or a feeling that they’d had a horrible dream they couldn’t remember anything about. 

For all the scare surrounding the condition, phasing was generally harmless. But all of Hoenn’s phasing cases dealt only with pure ghost types. Lance had no idea what a ghost with a secondary poison typing was capable of. Even the worst ghost-type encounters — the real ones, at least — usually always ended as a bad fright. Run-ins with poison types didn’t always end so well. Poison killed.

To say that he was scared for Keith was an understatement. He was terrified.

Skittering around over Keith’s still form was a black scaly reptile with a large head and oddly-shaped ears on its neck. It was Keith’s Salandit, who had appeared the second Keith hit the ground. After chasing away the Gastly, it’d taken a while for it to stop snarling and spitting fire at Lance. Lance wasn’t surprised; Keith’s little lizard thing had severe trust issues from its days locked up in some basement lab. Six months of working with its trainer wasn’t gonna magically make all that trauma go away. 

Still didn’t excuse it from being a total jackass. 

And Yuuki? Yuuki was fine. In fact, he was great. So great, that Keith’s nasty lizard thing got along with him just fine. Salandit was probably the only reason why Yuuki wasn’t crying. No doubt seeing that scrappy little thing chase after a Gastly and land nasty welts on an Inter-Pol detective who saved his life gave Yuuki enough reason to believe that now, they’d  _ really _ be safe from harm. 

And that was fine with Lance, really. It was what he wanted, in the end; for Yuuki to feel safe. 

Safety had always been a first priority for the International Police. It was the entire basis upon which their organization had been founded on — a mission to secure and maintain a working harmony between Pokemon and people alike, and to bring to justice those who tried to thwart it. In pledging to uphold this mission, members pledged to always uphold the safety of the people above all — and, when it came to it, over even that of themselves or of their partner. It was dangerous work. 

Lance, however, was no stranger to danger. The situation they were in now was nothing compared to what Lance had to deal with before. Hoenn was no powerhouse like Sinnoh or Kalos, but it was a place of sleeping titans, and Lance’s job for many years prior to joining Inter-Pol had been to help maintain the balance of power at home.

But while he could keep a cool head even in the most perilous of situations, that ability had yet to transfer rightly when his partners were directly involved. He always felt like he didn’t know enough, didn’t think fast enough, or didn’t fight hard enough for them. He always felt as if he himself was lacking. At least, he thought, he had his team.

Protocol dictated that all missions be carried out in teams of two or more, with each member carrying at least three battle-experienced partners. Lance had on him three members of his original team, the one that had carried him through the Hoenn League and granted him his first title. They were his ride or die, and he knew everything about anything when it came to them. For similar reasons, Lance found that many Inter-Pol members were likeminded, and often kept the same team for every mission. Keith, on the other hand, was just a little bit different. 

While his newest partner swapped his trio often between missions, the one that remained a constant presence had always been Salandit. Lance had long since given up on earning its trust, focusing now on earning its respect. At least, that’s what Shiro had suggested. It was a much better hope to cling to, especially when Keith’s advice on getting along with it had been a shrug and a  _ “I dunno.” _

At least Talonflame trusted him; the creature seemed to respect him enough to carry out requests at the absence of its own trainer. Lance had sent it off in search of help, telling it to return to Azalea and bring back the closest person it could find. He hoped it’d come back real soon, and with someone willing to testify in court — because he was pretty sure that by the time somebody found them, the devil lizard was gonna rip him to shreds and would need to be put down.

Salandit had never once stopped giving him the evil eye, looking as if it blamed him for what had befallen its trainer. It stood on Keith’s shoulder, its usual perch when Keith was up and about, and made snuffling sounds every now and then as it pawed its trainer’s face in distress. Each time it failed to gain a reaction from Keith, it gave a low, disappointed hiss.

“Me too, buddy.” Lance said, patting the air over its head. He plastered on a smile when the devil lizard stretched out and bit his thumb.

“Oh, no! Mr. Lance!”

Lance clenched his jaw as Yuuki scooped up the devil lizard right into his arms. “Bad, Salandit!” Yuuki scolded sternly. “Bad!”  Salandit turned into a repentant, cooing mess.

“Are you okay?” Yuuki asked, voice full of concern. In his little arms, Salandit wrapped its little paws over its mouth and snickered.

“I’m fine,” he gritted out, glaring at the devil incarnate as he stuck his wounded thumb into his mouth. Blood seeped through the tiny puncture and sat bitterly on his tongue. He swore that as soon as Keith was better, he was gonna kick the shit out his piece-of-shit lizard and accept whatever death Keith would bring. He didn’t care what it’d gone through anymore; that thing was malicious and out for his blood

His monologue of hate for the devil lizard was promptly stopped by a familiar trill. 

Yuuki jumped up and down. “Mr. Keith’s Talonflame! It’s back!” He was so excited, he let go of Salandit, who scurried quickly back to its trainer. “And look — Someone’s coming!”

Lance peered into the distance and caught a beam of bright, yellow light. There was no mistaking it — that was definitely a flashlight. And unless there was some odd mutation or genetic experiment gone wrong since the last few hours they’d come out here, Lance was sure that could only mean a real human being was on the way. 

Talonflame came down to roost on a nearby branch. It looked keenly at them, as if to check whether anyone else had dropped unconscious since its departure. It trained its eyes on him, who was still sucking his thumb, for a long, contemplative moment. Then, it looked at Salandit.

Salandit stared back. 

Talonflame cocked its head to the side. Suddenly, it swooped down and kicked Salandit to the ground. A sharp talon pinned the squealing lizard down by its own head.

Lance took immense pleasure at seeing the devil lizard squirm and screech under the sharp talons of a falcon now very occupied with preening its already shining feathers. His admiration for the majestic bird disappeared, however, when the stranger it brought spoke up at last.

“Who’s there?” called a very young voice that in no way shape or form could ever possibly belong to anyone who could offer them any real help. 

“A kid?” Lance hissed at the bird, “You asked a  _ kid _ for help? Ugh, I knew I should’ve sent Jet— Ow! Stop—  _ Stop _ that, you— Don’t peck me, you overgrown Pidgey!”

“Heeey!” Yuuki shouted, waving his arms, “Over here! We need help!”

The beam of light stopped in its tracks. “…Yuuki?” 

Yuuki froze. Then, he whirled around and reached for Talonflame. With an indignant squawk, the falcon opened its wings to fly away, but Yuuki hung onto one of its talons. “I can’t believe you asked Maki for help! There are so many other people out there! My mom! My dad! Even my dumb Farfetch’d!”

Lance quickly recalled Talonflame into its Great Ball. Not because he felt sorry for the birdbrain; he just didn’t want it to claw Yuuki’s eyes out. Or his. He’d been pretty mean to it there. Also, he kept calling it a dumb bird behind its back. And in front of it. Mostly the former, though.

The second the avian was recalled, Salandit scrambled up to Lance’s shoulder and hissed nastily at the newcomer, flicking its tail. It slapped madly against the back of his neck and the side of his face. It even went into his mouth.

“Ow, cut it out,” he told it, shoving it off. It scurried away.

Maki scowled and snapped off the flashlight. “Fine, then. Stay lost, for all I care.”

Lance scrambled to his feet. “Whoa, buddy, hold on—” The flashlight turned on again, blinding Lance right in the face. “Hey!”

The average person, child or not, would’ve moved the flashlight out of direct eye contact by now. So either Maki didn’t have any common sense, or Maki really was as mean as Yuuki had said he was.

Or, Lance thought, letting his mind feed off intuition, there was an option three.

“Oh. It’s the detective.” The beam of light moved to the side, now shining on Keith’s unconscious face. “. . . . Who’s that on the ground?”

“Mr. Lance’s partner,” Yuuki answered. “He’s hurt! He needs help.”

“Well, duh. What happened? He hit his head or something? How lame. I thought you detectives were supposed to be all cool and stuff.” 

The flashlight clicked off again. They were engulfed in total darkness. Lance could barely even see his hand in front of his face; he couldn’t even see any lights of the bug pokemon on the trees along the path.

Weird, thought Lance, willing his eyes to adjust faster in the dark. Weirder still was how nonchalant this kid was about finding a person lying unconscious in the middle of the woods. Option two definitely seemed most likely, now.

So did option three.

“There was a ghost!” Yuuki cried, throwing his hands in the air as if to show him. “And there was blue fire, and it went around us like this— Oh, but first it showed up when I was telling Mr. Lance about my lantern, and then the fire went like, _whoosh, whoosh,_ _whoosh!_ All around us! And then. . . . it disappeared! But then it came back! A-And it was trying to make us go _that_ way, over there! To the right! And then, Mr. Lance said, um, then he said that that’s not okay because it’s trying to make us go toward death!”

Even in the darkness, Lance saw the way that made Maki freeze up. Lance slapped his hand to his face. Great job freaking out the village kids, he told himself, some hero you are.

“And then the ghosts came back and tried to kill us! And Mr. Lance and Mr. Keith had a battle and chased away the ghosts! But then one of them came back, and—”

“Ghosts?” Maki scoffed. “Are you crazy? There’s no Gastly here. We’re not in Ecruteak, idiot. This is Ilex Forest. There’s no ghosts around here.”

Lance stared at Maki the same way option three was now staring at him straight in the face.

“Yes there are,” Yuuki insisted. “I saw them!  _ We _ saw them!”

Lance looked down at Keith one last time. He was still unconscious, but he didn’t seem to be in any worse shape than before. He took Keith’s wrist in his hand and felt for a pulse. It was there, though slow, and his wrist was warmer. Was it a fever? Or did it mean he’d wake up soon? 

Keith’s chest rose and fell; Lance could see it clearly in the dark, even more now that Salandit was off its chest. Salandit was on the ground beside its trainer, its thieving little paws tapping the only Ultra Ball on Keith’s belt. Sensing a voyeur, it looked up. It stared at Lance for half a second before disappearing off into the woods with the Ultra Ball. Lance didn’t stop it. He’d worked with it plenty of times before to know what it was going on. 

“Not everything is like a movie, Yuuki. Stop acting like such a kid.”

“Well, you’re a kid too! You’re not my mom or my dad, so don’t tell me what to do.”

“Okay. So I won’t tell you how to get out of here, then. Bye. Have fun getting lost.”

Lance took a step forward. “How are you so sure there aren’t any ghost types here?”

In the darkness, Lance was able to see Maki cross his arms and give him a look. “Don’t you know anything? This forest is protected by a guardian. Nothing hurts this forest and gets away with it.”

Lance matched his look with one of his own. “Are you talking about a Pokemon? Or are you talking about yourself?”

Maki frowned. “What? I’m a kid. What can  _ I _ do? I can’t even walk through the forest without a flashlight. I was led here by your Pokemon — which, by the way, doesn’t even respect you as a trainer. Great job with that, mister detective.”

Lance ignored the jab with an easy smile. “Oh, I don’t know, kids can do a lot. You’d be surprised. Actually, I guess you wouldn’t be all that surprised. You’re a kid yourself, aren’t you? You know what I mean.”

Maki didn’t say anything.

“You said your name was Maki, right? I didn’t see you at any of the classes I visited this week. Are you home-schooled? Do your parents teach you? They must be really smart.”

“Shut up,” Maki scowled, “I know what you’re doing. You’re actually from the Johto Youth Agency, aren’t you? I knew you two weren’t actually from Inter-Pol. Nobody from Inter-Pol would bother to come this far south.”

Lance frowned. That definitely sounded like there was some kind of bad history there. “Why’s that?”

“Azalea’s a small town.” The anger in Maki’s voice chipped away any genuinity behind the kind words he said. “Nothing happens here. And even when it does, people think it’s not a big deal because this is a  _ nice _ town. You’ve been here a while, you know what I mean. It’s a good place. It’s  _ great. _

“So if you came all the way here to tell me I’m not living in a great environment, don’t even bother. I don’t need an adult, I’m fine right here. I’ve got a guardian of my own here.”

“Do you? That’s good. It’s important to have a system of support. Your guardian — is that who home-schools you now?”

Maki’s brow furrowed deeply. “What with you and home-schooling? You got something against home-schooled kids?”

Lance laughed. “Oh, no, no, no— It’s nothing like that. I’m just. . . . curious. You seem to know a lot about a lot of things — especially about this forest. I mean, we didn’t even tell you what kind of ghosts we saw, but you were smart enough to figure it out.”

Maki stared at him. 

Lance grinned. Gotcha, kid!

Maki grit his teeth. “Gastly! Poison gas!” 

As suddenly as Maki had given the order, one of the Gastly apparated into view. With a screech, thick, purple gas billowed out from its gaping mouth. The moment it did, Maki turned tail and ran, as the Gastly sank back into the dark. 

“He’s getting away!” Yuuki cried.

Lance snorted. “He wishes.”

The poor kid only got so far before a sleek black lizard tumbled onto the trail with a nasty hiss, its tail rearing high with flames that danced along its length. A glow of embers began to form deep down its throat. 

As threatening as it was, Lance knew the flashy display was all for show. Salandit would never hurt a child, no matter how fickle it was. But since Maki didn’t know that, Lance’s usual Plan B was ‘rolling out’ just great.

Haha,  _ rolling out. _ Ha! Ha, haha. . . . 

Oh, that— That was, uh— That was an inside joke, because. . . .

Well, you’ll get it later.

“Time to fly, Jet!” Lance cried, tossing a Premier Ball into battle, “Whirlwind!”

With a fearsome screech, a condor-like beast of all metal landed on the trail with a grand thud. Immediately upon arrival, it ripped into the air with its wings, the ringing of steel echoing in the night. The blast of air from its attack tornaoed through the gas, spreading it away from Lance and Yuuki—and straight towards Maki instead.

Ahaha! That was  _ not _ what Lance pictured in his head. Not! At! All! 

Yuuki was hysterical, pulling on Lance’s arm and even dragging him a couple steps toward Maki. “Wait! No! Stop! He’s gonna get poisoned! Like Mr. Keith! We gotta  _ save _ him!”

Though a part of him was screaming the same things at himself, the other part was not; because Lance thought it was strange how, in the face of such danger, Maki was unusually calm — almost like he knew this wasn’t going to hurt him. Almost like this had happened to him once before.

A thick hazy cloud suddenly bubbled up around Maki’s head, shrouding him completely. A few feet behind him, a silhouette of a large, hulking being emerged from the forest. As it took silent steps toward them, the cloud of haze around Maki’s head condensed heavily in the center, almost to the point where he couldn’t see Maki’s face. Suddenly, two giant pairs of eyes blinked open, and the hazy cloud grinned. It was a Gastly.

“We’re too late!” Yuuki wailed.

“No, we’re not,” said Lance, more to himself. “Look — It’s saving him.”

The gaseous smog hanging thick in the air thinned out; and as it did, Gastly’s own body started to grow. It was drawing the gas back into itself. Slowly, the haze surrounding Maki began to lift, and Lance saw a sneer meant just for him. 

“Whirlwind on a poison gas attack? If Gastly wasn’t here, who knows what could’ve happened to me. Do you even  _ know _ what you’re doing?”

Lance wasn’t one to condone hitting a child, but he really,  _ really _ wanted to punch this one kid in the face. Luckily, he didn’t have to.

“Sure do, buddy.” Lance pointed dead ahead. “It’s called a Pincer. But, I mean, you  _ are _ just a kid. Maybe you’ve never heard of it—”

“I know what it is,” Maki scoffed, waving the Gastly off him. “But if you think you’ve got me trapped with that stupid lizard of yours, then you’re dumber than you look. That thing’s all hiss and diss, it won’t roast me. If it was going to, it would’ve done so already.”

Lance put on a good-natured smile. “Oh, I’m not talking about the lizard.”

Maki’s brow furrowed together. And then, both he and his eyebrows rose up into the air, panic written all over his face. “Wh-What the— Put me down! Put me—  _ Gaaah!” _

The large, hulking being coming from down the road was now a giant mass of muscle and black-striped red fur, and it had just picked Maki up like he were an empty backpack. Passing through between its large feet, an Ultra Ball rolled out, followed swiftly by Salandit nudging it along.

Lance headed straight for Maki, ignoring the sudden hiss Salandit threw at him when he got within three feet of it because it was a spiteful cumshot spawn of the devil. Lance ignored it in favor of staring Maki down, and crossed his arms. “What’s with you? Are you, like, the self-proclaimed guardian of the forest or something? Is that it? ‘Cause if that’s your take, I got news for you, kid. You’re a bad guardian. Bad. I mean, what kind of forest guardian tries to poison—”

Lance had to dodge left because of a sudden kick to the face. “Whoa!” Lance cried as Maki continued kicking his feet, “Watch it! Don’t— Dude, don’t  _ kick— _ Hey! Not the face!”

Maki bared his teeth. “You’re ugly anyway, and I hate you, so who cares?!”

Lance’s nostrils flared.  _ “I _ care! This is my  _ face! _ A-And I’m not ugly, you are!”

“No I’m not! You’re the ugly one!”

“Look who’s talking!”

“Yeah, it’s the Purugly of ugly!”

Lance gasped. “I-It is  _ not, _ you take that back!

“Never!” howled Maki.

A puff of hot air and a low growl kept Lance from adding anything after that, because he was twenty-two years old and a grown man with grown man responsibilities, like protecting the good of the people and maintaining the balance of harmony between Pokemon and people.

And also because Keith’s Incineroar was a very intimidating creature. It could cuddle the life out of you, but it could also crush your face with one smack. Plus, it only cuddled, like, never, so… Yeah. It could be terrifying.  _ Was _ terrifying. As in, it was terrifying right now. It was baring its sharp teeth and looking menacingly at Maki like it wanted to chew its head off. Fear wasn’t a good look on anybody, and the sheer terror replacing the stoic cockiness on Maki’s face was not as great as Lance thought it would be. 

Okay, maybe it  _ was _ everything he wanted. But don’t tell Allura. You can tell Shiro, though; Shiro’s not a snitch. Not really, anyway. At least, not as long as it involved rule-breaking, or anything dangerous and life-threatening and potentially— Okay, fine, Shiro was a goddamn snitch, too.

As if sensing ill thoughts about Shiro, Keith fucking zombie’d it up, scaring the shit out of everyone around.

“I didn’t mean it!” Lance heard his partner scream, making him almost sort of scream too.

“Keith, holy shit,” said Lance, forgetting to care about the fact that he was in front of kids. He ran back to his partner, who was sitting upright with bloodshot eyes. Keith looked paler than he’s ever seen, and he kept screaming  _ “I didn’t mean it! _ ” over and over again. It scared him. 

Keith was shaking. “I didn’t mean it,” he repeated, staring unblinkingly ahead as his hands clawed at his arms, “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t. I didn’t.” 

Lance had no idea what Keith was talking about, but he recognized the wide-eyed, harrowed look on Keith’s face. It was common for Night Shade victims to wake up like this, but six months with Keith told him this wasn’t all just from Night Shade. This was trauma.

Lance felt sharp pinpricks flare up his arm and dig right into the skin of his shoulder. Without warning, Salandit had climbed up and was now face to face with its trainer. Instead of eagerly jumping onto Keith’s shoulder like it usually did when they were apart for even five seconds, it stayed crouched a few inches from Keith’s face and stared unblinkingly, as if waiting for Keith to do something first.

Keith’s unseeing stare seemed to stretch on forever. But slowly, a flicker of recognition returned. His eyes settled first on Salandit, and then on Lance. Disoriented, Keith’s brow furrowed deeply and a strange look filled his gaze.

“What the hell is— Who the hell—” Suddenly, Keith backed up completely. “Where am I?” This was said quietly, almost to himself. Then, Keith asked again, this time at Lance. “Where am I?!”

Lance gave a shaky smile. Salandit’s claws were going to draw blood; it was funny how, of all the things he could think about right now, that was the thought that pushed strongly at the forefront of his brain. “Hey, man,” he tried, laughing nervously, “We’re— We’re in Ilex Forest.”

“Ilex Forest,” Keith repeated. Lance felt at a loss when Keith suddenly looked away to stare at the ground. “Ilex Forest,” he said again, “and it’s. . . . What year is it?”

Lance felt a terrible cold flooding into his chest. “What?” His voice sounded like a hollow echo.

Salandit made quiet snuffling sounds and leaned its snout in, bumping into Keith’s hair. When Keith next looked up, there was some kind of clarity returning to his eyes.

The phasing must’ve wore off, Lance thought. But just as the first waves of cool relief could wash over him, Keith suddenly leapt right up to his feet and bolted for the woods.

“What the hell?” he shouted, Salandit hissing and snarling in his face as it scrambled over him to chase after its trainer, Incineroar thundering along beside it. Lance choked on a gasp as he fell backwards onto his back, the forest canopy swirled madly overhead. 

“Mr. Keith!” Yuuki cried, before dashing into the woods.

“You idiot!” Maki shouted, “Come back!” He, too, ran off.

And left Lance, alone on the trail, with no working signal.

**Author's Note:**

> @s-tover on tumblr.


End file.
